


Do I Wanna Know?

by Tirrathee



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Songfic, human!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3718417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tirrathee/pseuds/Tirrathee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is the constant variable in Thor's life. He couldn't imagine a more fickle relationship, and it drives him crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do I Wanna Know?

**Author's Note:**

> A Thorki fic that boiled through my brain after I've listened to AM for too many times in a row around the time that the album came out. Inspired, obviously, by the song whose title I stole for this piece.  
> It's at a point where I could leave it off but should continue, because there's the seedling of a plot there, but I haven't had the inspiration nor willpower necessary to churn out further paragraphs. For now, consider it a draft, oneshot, what you will.

Thor cannot remember how he had met him anymore. It is almost as though Loki has slithered his way into his life without anyone's permission or knowledge and one day Thor just woke up with Loki there to stay.

   There was no pattern to their meetings, although Thor wished there was. Some nights, alone in his too-small apartment, or out to see a movie or a concert or just hang out in bars with friends, he was hit with this sudden pang of longing for Loki's fickle company, his elusive answers to the questions he sometimes couldn't hold back anymore, or simply for his confident, unapologetic touches. Usually on those nights he walked out of wherever he was and smoked in solitude, looking up at the sky between the high, dirty walls of whatever alley he found silence in, endlessly regretting he never got to ask Loki for his phone number, wondering if he had one at all. Then, a few hours or days or weeks later he was walking home in sleet or rain or the first evening chill of the summer with his bike at his side and the lean, graceful figure fell in step with him out of nowhere. They ate takeout from the small Indian restaurant they passed on their way or Thor reheated something from the day before; every so often Loki would be concealing a bag of ingredients in his backpack to make them a proper, if simple, meal. Then, as Thor was halfway through washing the dishes, a pair of lips would latch to his neck and a cool hand would untangle his messy bun or ponytail, or simply slide into his loose hair and pull back, and the next thing he knew Loki was fucking him against the kitchen table, or they were jerking off on the couch, or he was making love to Loki on his bed, still unmade since he got out of it in the morning with only a half-conscious hope for a night like this.

  


   "Do you remember how we met?", he asks, Loki half-asleep and sprawled across his chest and his rumpled bedsheets that smell of sweat and come.

   "Some night like any other. You were drunk, I was bored. It's how these things go. Maybe." Loki shrugs lightly with one shoulder and rolls over, stretching like a satisfied cat, then sags bonelessly beside Thor, belly down, head turned away from him. Thor resists the urge to trace the branches of the tree tattooed on his back; there's a story behind this tattoo, he imagines, but he doesn't dare ask. Finally it takes the better of him and as his fingertips slide along the tangled lines. Loki sighs almost imperceptibly. When Thor lays a soft kiss at the base of his neck, where the branches end like capillaries, he doesn't respond; asleep or pretending to be.

  


   Sometimes Thor wonders about Loki's life outside of their little relationship, if it could be called that. Where he worked, if he had a family, some friends, where he lived. Whether he kept a dog or a cat, or if he had any animals at all. What time he got up and what he ate for breakfast. If he rode a bike and what he could see outside his windows. If he liked fast food or four-star cuisine. If he thought about Thor, if he jerked off to the memory of his bulk pinned beneath him or pinning him down; if he, too, had dreams like Thor, in which Loki whispered threats and promises and sweet nothings into his ear, flicking in and out of reach with Thor chasing him endlessly. If he knew of Thor's obsession with him.

  


   Next time Thor sees Loki is even more unexpected than usual. Sometimes they bumped into each other in a club (or, as Thor reflected in moments of disillusion, Loki hunted him down in a club), but Thor never frequented upscale establishments of the sort he now finds himself in with Fandral for company; the dashing blonde found it recently through a new coworker he'd been insistently flirting with and hoped to 'accidentally' meet her there. Thor tagged along in hopes of finding some company for himself, but the mood gradually escapes him. He sits at the bar, watching Fandral chat with some long-legged beauties when out of the corner of his eye he spots a flash of inky hair and pale skin. He whips his head around and sure enough, there is Loki, seeming perfectly in place in his well-tailored suit, greeting two similarly clad men at the bar and walking with them to a secluded booth. Against his better judgment, Thor follows them, and pauses by the restroom door, watching them take their seats. Loki looks up and directly at him, a warning and a promise in his eyes, and half a second later he concentrates on the men next to him. It takes Thor several breaths to break out of the daze.

   Loki doesn't leave before him, and after an hour of drinking and rejecting several women and one daring man he finally gives up. Fandral is nowhere in sight, so Thor just walks out and heads home on unsteady feet. His mind is buzzing, concentrated on Loki and whether he's involved with the mob or Thor is just reading too much into the situation.  
   "Had a fun evening," asks Loki, and it's really more of an ironic statement in the way Loki says it. Thor startles, and sure enough, Loki is walking by his side, suit jacket slung over one shoulder and smirk firmly in place.  
   "Less so than you," slurs Thor, not caring to appear any less drunk than he is right now.  
   "They serve potent drinks, down there. Stronger than what you're used to." Loki hums softly as he kicks litter out of his path. "I hope you can hold your liquor."  
   Thor doesn't answer, blinking at street lamps that flood their way intermittently with yellow light in vertical cones awhirl with countless insects. Loki steadies him when he sways, balance unsure from looking upwards. The slender hand stays at his elbow as they stroll on. 

   That night they both seem content to merely spend time in one another's company, eating whatever was left in Thor's fridge and watching reruns of Tudors on TV. Thor falls asleep on his couch with Loki's head in his lap. When he wakes, he's alone, as always. He wonders at the queer domesticity they have when Loki shows up.  
There's breakfast laid out for him and the coffee is still steaming in the pot, and the flat feels all the more empty for it.

  


   After that, Thor doesn't see Loki for nearly two months. His friends keep pegging him to find a date, telling him he sulks. He denies, but quietly admits to himself that yes, there is a weight on his heart that pulls him down. He drinks more these days, more often alone in his flat, and listens to Arctic Monkeys on repeat, pretending to himself that he's not hopelessly stuck on Loki.

   Sif comes over and berates him for the state his place is in, and they tidy up together, Thor gradually coming back to his old self, joking amiably with her and shaking out of the odd daze he's been in. Next day, the five of them meet for lunch, and for a time Thor almost forgets about Loki.

  


   One chilly evening in October Thor is shaking droplets off his umbrella just inside the main door of his building when a pale hand shoots out of the shadows and pulls him into a rough kiss that tastes of one drink too many.  
   "Loki," he mutters in surprise when they break for air.  
   "Shut up," and there's desperation thinly veiled in Loki's voice.  
   They walk up the flight of stairs to Thor's apartment door and when he lets Loki in, a strange silence befalls them. Loki walks around the rooms, looks at everything like he's seeing it for the first time. Or the last, perhaps. Thor watches, leaning against the door frame, and wonders. Something changed, something big, and Thor feels like he's treading on thin ice because he doesn't know what it is.  
   "Why are you drunk?", he asks. Loki looks up at him from where his fingers were tracing the spines of his books in the cardboard box he never got down to unpacking.  
   "Because I've been drinking, how do you imagine people get drunk?" he replies, slurring just a little. Thor finds it oddly endearing.  
   "Are you in trouble?" he implores even as a small smile tugs at the edge of his mouth.  
   "Baby, I am trouble," and just as abruptly as a while earlier Loki is in his personal space, murmuring into his ear and kissing along his neck, biting lightly at his clavicle where he pulled Thor's shirt down with the hand fisted in the worn cotton. Thor lets his bag drop to the floor and slides his hands up Loki's waist.  
   "You've lost weight." Thor observes, counting Loki's ribs as he slides his plain t-shirt up and off.  
   "Since when are you so caring?" sighs Loki against his throat. He grabs Thor's waistband and rolls his hips against his groin, which derails Thor's train of thought for a moment.  
   He laughs breathlessly. "I haven't seen you in a while. I got clingy, I guess."  
   Loki merely hums and steps back to divest Thor of his shirt, tossing it carelessly next to his own on the floor. "So you missed me, that's sweet of you. How many people you fucked thinking of me?"  
   Thor looks at him for a moment, half of his mind focused on Loki's mere presence, half on the hurt he feels at the question. Partially because Loki assumes he took other lovers trying to sate his hunger for Loki and Loki only; mostly, though, because he is right. He did bring home a girl he'd met at a club, a petite black-haired thing with too much makeup, that insisted on him leaving a hickey on her neck; he felt like he'd used her wrongly for the week afterwards even though she kissed him goodbye on the cheek and left her number on his fridge in blood red lipstick that left behind a pinkish stain he couldn't get off.  
   Loki reads him like a book even in his inebriated state; seems to drink in the hint of guilt that flutters in Thor's eyes for the briefest moment, and tuts.   
"No need to be upset over banging someone behind my back. It's not like you owe me anything." There's a strange lilt to his voice, something hanging between regret and expectation. "I took my share of whores into my bed, too, all of them blonde and blue-eyed like the Aryan ideal, but flawed, so flawed otherwise. Each one proud to a fault. I hated every. Single. One. Of them." The last words slip into a growl, each one punctuated with baring of Loki's teeth and an angry snarl, yet his eyes remain impassive. His breath hits Thor's nostrils and he cringes at the reek of alcohol.  
   Loki sways on his feet, stumbling to the side, and with a muttered 'fuck' pushes past stunned Thor and into his bathroom. The sound of retching has Thor drag a hand across his face in exasperation. He pours a glass of water and follows Loki.  
   "You hate them that much?" he asks as soon as Loki comes up for breath, spitting in disgust.  
   "What?" Loki slurs, accepting the water. He sips at it a few times before vomiting again. He makes a pitiful sight, with drool and snot drying on his face, eyes bloodshot and a frown instead of the usual smirk. Thor is struck with a pang of protectiveness that surprises him.

   Loki makes several attempts at getting into Thor's pants that night, but is gently yet firmly rebuffed each time. In the end, they lay in Thor's bed, Loki begrudgingly accepting the position of the small spoon out of sheer exhaustion.  
   "You never came to me in such state," muses Thor, breathing in the scent of his strange lover. Loki winces and slurs in reply.  
   "Lemme sleep, you oaf. 'M tired."  
   At this, Thor knows he could push the matter all he wanted but would get no substantial reply. He resolves to get his answers in the morning.


End file.
